At the begging of the 90s Pat Riley stepped down. Despite Riley leaving the Lakers still advanced to the finals where they lost to Jordan and the Bulls. This was followed with Magic Johnson's announcement of his retirement and him having HIV. The next couple years were a roller coaster for the Lakers. Even with Magic returning to the Lakers in '93, the Lakers couldn't have a good season. The following season the Lakers signed Del Harris as coach, got Nick Van Exel, Cedric Ceballos, and Eddie Jones. This led to a 15 win improvement for the Lakers but they lost in the playoffs to San Antonio. The following year Magic came back to play again but the Lakers fell to the Houston Rockets.
The following year (96) Shaq came to the Lakers. The Lakers came with one of the greatest lineups with Nick Van Exel, Eddie Jones, Elden Campbell, Robert Horry, 18-year-old Kobe Bryant, and Shaqquile O' Neal. All 6 of which made it to the All-Star game. The Lakers fell that season to Utah. The following season the Lakers won 61 games but lost in the Western Conference Finals.
The next season (98-99) was a shortened season (28 games) because of the player strikes. The Lakers coach was Kurt Rambis, they also signed Dennis Rodman. The Lakers got to the 2nd round were they lost to the San Antonio Spurs.
The 1999-2000 season the Lakers got Phil Jackson to coach. Phil brought with him most of his staff from the Chicago Bulls championships. (Tex Winter, Frank Hamblen, Jim Cleamons) Before the trade deadline in February the Lakers traded Eddie Jones and Elden Cambell for Glen Rice and JR Reed. The Lakers finished the season with a good record of 67-15, 5 losses from tying Chicago's record (72-10)and 3 from the Lakers record (69-13). The Lakers went to the playoffs with the best record. In the first round they played the Kings. The Lakers won the 1st 2 but the Kings won there two games at Arco, so the Lakers finished them off at home in game 5.(3-2) The Lakers then played The Suns and would have swept them if they didn't give up game 2, but they beat the Suns 4-1. The next series was a tough series, against the Lakers rival Portland Trail Blazers, the series went to game 7 and the Lakers found them down by 15 points going into the 4th quarter, doing the near impossible in a playoff game, the Lakers fought back and won the game. They then went to the finals and beat the Pacers 4-2 and won the Championship.
At the begging of the 90s Pat Riley stepped down. Despite Riley leaving the Lakers still advanced to the finals where they lost to Jordan and the Bulls. This was followed with Magic Johnson's announcement of his retirement and him having HIV. The next couple years were a roller coaster for the Lakers. Even with Magic returning to the Lakers in '93, the Lakers couldn't have a good season. The following season the Lakers signed Del Harris as coach, got Nick Van Exel, Cedric Ceballos, and Eddie Jones. This led to a 15 win improvement for the Lakers but they lost in the playoffs to San Antonio. The following year Magic came back to play again but the Lakers fell to the Houston Rockets.
